OUR ADVERTISERS

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Preparing the Galaxie frame and fork for primer

Today I started cleaning the frame of dirt, grease and left over glue from the old stickers. I had the chance to remove some myself with a hairdryer to warm up the glue before pulling them off. This melts the glue and it comes with the sticker. But the previous owner had pulled some off without that precaution, so now I have some glue to remove with lighter fluid. What a nasty job!

Stickers are great since they protect the original finish. The more original finish you have the better. This means less work for you. Mind you this is not my first CCM restoration and their finish is not that thick.

Always clean the frame and fork with solvent to remove grease and dirt BEFORE you sand, I use paint thinner myself. This will prevent all this crap to get itself in the metal and eventually into the primer and color. You will be standing there baffled at all the funky things happening to your paint job if you don't take this precaution. Trust me, been there.(Aaaaaaaargh maud%t T$b%rn&c!) If you sand an unclean frame, even the primer should come out funky.

I've finally decided on a colour scheme. I'm going with metallic red with a white front end. The front of the frame, the headtube and lugs, and the fork will be white. I've found some white primer from Krylon. This should be great, I've had good experiences with white primer in building models. The top color comes out more vibrant.

Here's a tip: If this is your first time repainting a bike, start with the fork. If you screw up the fork while learning this overhaul thing, it won't be a big deal to start over. Redoing an entire frame is another ball game. Learn on something small first and there's nothing quite as filthy as a fork. You'll know right away if your cleaning technic is good enough.

22 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'm in the process of sanding my bike. Unfortunately I didn't read this blog before I started. I didn't clean the bike with thinner before sanding. It wasn't too dirty, but I'm sure it needed to be cleaned anyway. Is there anything I can do now that will insure I won't have any "funky" stuff happen to the paint? Thanks for the blog!!

Just clean it good with thinner before spraying on anything. Give it a light coat of primer and if you have anything left on the frame, you should see the primer doing some funky reactions. Don't forget to leave some time between coats for the different types of paint to dry(primer, color, clear) at least 24 hours per type. Good luck and happy to help you out.

hi, im 15, from australia. found my sisters old bike in the shed this afternoon and thought i might do it up for my little brother at the momment it is pink and white with fairy stikers allover. i figured my brother wouldnt like that so thought id give it a new paint job. i have taken it apart and sanded a tiny bit on the frame and thought id do it tomorrow. im glad i did that because, i just read your instructions and have found out about cleaning and thinner and stuff.

Hey Gerry, what's up? My name is Will and I'm from Toronto and have been crazy about cycling for as long as I can remember. I even have 2 steel rods embedded in my left arm to prove it. It was a very bad mountain biking accident four years ago back when I was a varsity member of University of Toronto Mountain biking club.

Anyhooo, I've decided to switch to road bikes but still own a couple of mountain bikes in case an opportunity present itself, ha ha.A couple of years ago I found an old black road bike in an empty lot near where I live. I posted notes but nobody claimed it and that's when I decided the ugly needed a make over. I turned it into a utility bike complete with rear and front racks. When I painted the frame and fork, and since I did not know any better.I did not clean it properly, sanded, or even applied putty. I just spray painted it using cans of aerosol Krylon paint. It looked great at first but the paint started to chip away within weeks and nowadays it look hideous. And so when I stumbled upon your blog I've decided to redo the same bike all over again.

My question is, what should I do in terms of prepping the frame and fork now that original paint is slowly becoming noticeable. Also, when I painted the frame and fork I did not bother disassembling the two. I painted the bike as a whole. by now, you probably know I'm a bit lazy as I also did not remove the pedals when i painted it, I simply covered them with saran wrap.

I'd like to know what you think about not disassembling the frame, fork and pedals? and of course your advice on how to prep the bike for another re-paint.

Hey Will, it depends on what you want as a final result. If you are just going to refresh it, sure just tape and paint. If you want something really nice I would say do the zen thing and take the whole thing apart. You'll have an opportunity to regrease those bearings at the same time. As for prep, use a very rough sandpaper to start and that Krylon should peel right off. Go over it once again with medium and finish with fine sandpaper. Your other option is to strip the frame and start from scratch.

Additionally, I would like to get your opinion on my plan to also spray paint the racks on my bike. I'm guessing I should also prime them before spray painting. I wanted to achieve an 'Orange Candy' colour on this bike project but there's not a lot of colour choices in Krylon. I read somewhere that if I spray two coats of yellow and topped with a thin coat of red, I will get that 'orange candy look'. what do you think?

What did you do regarding the CCM logo plate on the front of the frame? In one picture (the freshly painted frame) it looks like its gone, but in the final product its back on. Those things are riveted, right? I'm working on a vintage bike that needs paint, but I'd like to keep that front plate if possible...

I'm in London, about to undergo an ambitious project: painting a rusty old 70's tandem! Picked it up on ebay and wasa hoping to make it a bit edgy for cruising around clapham common with my girlfriend!

Firstly - Is this too ambitious? The frame design is not the simplest ever, as the diagonal bars are twin thinner tubes that are long and at a shallower angle, going either side of the uprights. As i've never painted a bike from scratch I was wondering if this is going to look rubbish as there are lots of nooks and crannies!

Also, do you have any advice on painting the rims of a bike? Was thinking a contrasting colour would look cool but dont know if I need a particular type of paint/if I need to sand first/how to take the tyres off!

so shall i just give it a couple coats of primer and then get on with the painting or should i thin/clean and sand it down first?

p.s: the bike is brand new and i plan on painting it as i do not like the current colours but i am fine with the vivid green forks, handle bars and front rim but i thought a matt black frame would go nice with this if i painted the rear wheel rim and sprocket (if i can manage it) bright green aswell. also should i get a white or grey primer if i want a matt black finish?thanks in advance for any help, matt.